PNB 2025

PNB returned to form this year as one of the largest events on the planet with 964 entires comprised of 428 drivers. This race always draws a huge turnout and many new faces are seen each year and this year on the pro side it even brought in some Europeans to compete! The track this year was as large as always but had a very technical middle section which was a lot of fun and the return of the wall with some grippy paint on it allowed us to ride much higher up it than years past.

Practice was open to start but quickly brought 45min wait times so after I got 3 runs in I opted to wait it out until our controlled practice run that was done midday. I then went to sleep to awake at 2am and return to find 5 minute wait times and much more track time to get dialed in. On the tire side it was mainly clay and soft (yellow) compounds for me from Rawspeed. In the buggies I was liking the new Triad tire as it gave good forward bite and allowed the car a bit more roll than the mach one which was keeping the buggies a bit too flat for my liking on this particular track. In truck though the Mach one was working well and I stuck with clay in nitro all weekend. In etruggy though I wanted to use it as a bit of a testing class and thus utilized some Soft SuperMinis in Q2 and the main with good success.

Qualifying this year had just 2 rounds with the 964 entires taking your single best qualpoint but with the tiebreaker being your other qualpoint. My standout rounds were TQ in both rounds of Etruggy using SSLW Mach one in Q1 and Soft SuperMini in Q2. In Nitro truggy taking a 2nd in both rounds on Clay Mach Ones to seed 2nd overall. In Ebuggy a 4th in Q2 on Soft Triad (as the track had dried up a bit) seeded me 7th overall, and in Nitro buggy a 2nd in Q2 on Clay Triad got me 3rd overall for the A-main grid.

Set-up wise I didn't change much all weekend from what I came with. It was mainly fine tuning my shocks oils as I have now gone to a primarily 6 hole set-up which I haven't done in a while and a little bit of tuning with sway-bars to get the right feel on the both tight (center) and highspeed (outside) track. I did go back to the black springs for this race as they provided better support and allowed me to drive harder everywhere that was needed

On Sunday it was time for the A-mains with the first one being up, a 30min nitro truggy final. My truck felt solid in warmup on clay mach one tires but it didn't take long before i messed it all up on the corner before the wall clipping the pipe and rolling it over. A brave marshal got me righted but now in the clutches of the field I got knocked back to dead last on lap 1. I would move up after that utilizing a couple of my joker laps and was into 8th and feeling comfortable and like I could make a charge. But on lap 8 a crashed car in the whoops collected me and sent me upside down and the marshal had to right the other car first and then me and unfortunately i flamed upside down and lost 2 laps in the process. I came back out and had the fastest lap of the race of a 39.3 but in the end mustered a disappointing 14th.

Next was Nitro buggy and I opted to stick with the clay Triad for this one. I had planned that if I had a good clean start I would rattle off my joker laps straight away to not have to work in traffic and just run my own race for a while and that is exactly what I did. I took the Jokers 1-2-3 and took the lead and just ran. Unfortunately on lap 5 I shorted the triple going away loosing 3 seconds and I knew that would put me in the clutches of the others when they took their jokers. But as they held theirs back for a while I led for the first 12 laps until Maifield took his 3rd one and got into the lead. I was following about 2 seconds behond but another 3 second crash on lap 18 and a longer one on lap 24 had me falling to 4th. Near the last 5 minutes of the race I had the opportunity in 3rd to get podium but either thing heated up in my car and I didn't adjust properly or I just lost my groove and I made some more mistakes and fell back to 4th which is where I would finish. I am disappointed in this one as I had the car to be battling at the top again but my consistency wasn't there this go around. But pleased to have pace with the 2nd fastest top 15 lap average of the field.

Next was the ebuggy final and I went with soft Triad with sauce in this one. My buggy felt good a racy and I had a good start moving up from 7th to 4th by lap 4. On that lap 4 though Maifield had crashed and fell back right in front of me and on the off camber I tagged him and crashed him. I felt really bad for the incedent and just wasn't in the race the rest of the way. I held 4th for a few more laps but fell to 5th and then a really bad lap at the end getting stuck on a nail in a pipe dropped me to 6th and off the podium. Disappointing after the good pace that I had but again, pleased to have that pace and able to compete.

Finally it was etruggy to cap off the night. On this one I ran my camera onboard to capture some footage which you can watch below. I tried to make it interesting and put on a bit of a show. On lap 2 I held a wheely for fun on the back straight for a couple seconds. I had some good early battles with Gavin and Kaden and put on a few nice overtakes. Then at the end of the race I sent it off the great wall to cap off the victory in the class. Overall a fun time and a TQ to victory conversion and a fun way to cap off the evening.

Set-up Sheets: